Our Top Priority

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I believe that in January of 2009, Barack Obama will be inaugurated as President of the United States of America.

Come January, we will have a remarkable opportunity to not only reverse the damage from the past eight years, but to enact a more sweeping liberal agenda the likes of which the country hasn’t seen since the 1960s. Democrats will most likely retain the House and Senate, liberal groups are stronger than ever, and increasingly the American people support liberal policy. And the first ninety days, the so-called “honeymoon period” where the media typically refrains from much criticism of the administration are vitally important.

So what should be the number one priority for the first ninety days? To me the answer is obvious. In fact it's so obvious and so vital that I believe that every liberal organization from Planned Parenthood to Greenpeace to Moveon.org should let go of their internal agenda for ninety days and focus on one thing:

Universal health care.

You thought I was going to say global warming? Gotcha!

Now why would a woman who spends her days prattling on about the environment turn around and say that for 3 months we should focus solely on health care? Simply because health care is a basic need.

To try and deal with an issue like global warming when millions of Americans have insecure access to health care is not dissimilar to trying to deal with the issue of literacy in India when millions of Indians have insecure access to water. It doesn't work. When Green Bean and I unveiled the "APLS," acronym, I admit, I was surprised by how many people balked at the word affluent. But the truth is, many of us are One Major Health Care Crisis That Insurance Won't Cover away from poverty. How do you like them apples?

If you are an American, you know what insecure health care means. People stay in horrible jobs, forgo early retirement, and give up on owning their own business because of health care. For the uninsured, things are worse. I've had friends ignore countless health-related red flags because they just can't afford to deal with the medical bills. I had an insurance-less friend who had a cyst removed, not in a hospital, but on the floor of a hotel room. And yet another who was denied insurance, because she occasionally took medication for cold sores.

This is not right. 

We can talk about living simply, we can talk about how our uber-consumptive economy doesn't work, but until we fix health care, all that is moot. Voluntary simplicity advocates talk about how if you buy less stuff, you can work less. Sorry, no. Not in America. Because in America part-time work generally does not confer benefits.

Yes, but there are other important issues! We can't drop everything for NINETY days! Global warming, peak oil, ZOMG TIPPING POINT!!

I know, I know, I know. But here's the problem. The health insurance companies have lots of money and lots of power. They have so much power that Obama, who used to support single-payer health care, now advocates a watered down form of voluntary health care. But, I believe universal health coverage is achievable if we all band together. Besides the fact that health care is so basic that it affects everything else.

How so?

Here's an example. About 10 months ago, I was at work when I felt like I was having an asthma attack. I didn't have an inhaler with me, so I started to panic, which made my asthma worse. I quickly decided to go to the drug store and get an inhaler right there and then.

At the drugstore, the pharmacist handed me an inhaler right away. After a few pumps, I felt better and calmer. I handed my credit card over for my co-pay which I was then informed was ... 40 dollars. 

"FORTY Dollars?" I asked horrified. I had never, ever paid forty dollars for an inhaler before. Ever.

The pharmacist assured me that was correct. 

"How much was it without insurance?" I asked. Apparently, $44. My insurance had covered four dollars.

Now, I'd like to say right here, that I have awesome insurance. You know when you hear an "average American" talk about how they love their insurance? That's me. I *adore* my insurance. I want to marry my insurance and have little insurance babies. So the fact that they had covered so little was ... really, really weird.

As I walked back to the office, I fully intended to figure out what the deal was with that ultra-expensive inhaler. But the truth is, I forgot. Forty dollars is a lot, but frankly, I need an inhaler about once a year. I could afford  it. And so it remained one of those strange unsolved mysteries, until yesterday when I saw this article in the New York Times.

Apparently, the reason that inhaler was so expensive was because unlike the original inhalers,  this inhaler was made CFC-free to comply with federal regulations set to go into effect in January 2009. Those old inhalers? Cost $13.50.

I finished the article feeling really bothered, somehow. How, I wondered, had I never known any of this? Isn't it odd, that though I have read countless articles by environmentalists about the effects of pollution on poor kids with asthma, I have never, ever, not once, read an article by an environmentalist about this new, expensive, albeit CFC-free, inhaler and its effect on poor kids with asthma?

Why? Is asthma in poor kids just a means to an end, or do environmental groups really care about asthma? Because, frankly, if environmental groups are just using asthma as a way to talk about diesel buses, then I don't want to be part of that group.

For the record, I have no issue paying $40 myself for a CFC-free inhaler. But $40 is too much money for a medication that many people have to take once a month. Just because we have achieved our goal in mandating a CFC-free inhaler does not mean our job is done. If we really care about poor kids with asthma, then we must make sure that those CFC-free inhalers are easily affordable. Caring about the environment does not mean caring about global warming and ozone depletion while ignoring the very people we claim to want to protect. 

And that's why health care needs to be everyone's priority. Because, really, we're not environmentalists because we want to "save the world." We all know that the world itself will continue to turn. We're environmentalists because we care about the people and other species that inhabit this world. So it's time for us to put our money where our mouth is. If we care about Americans, we must support universal health care. It's time.